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This year for my October Easel Calendar I decided to take a break from Halloween:

I mean, Halloween is a lot of fun – and it’s a Really Big Deal in Hawaii – but I just couldn’t bring myself to look at spiders all month. Can you relate to that?

Stamps: Flower Shop

Color Palette: Crushed Curry, Tangerine Tango, Cherry Cobbler

Accessories: Pansy punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Crystal Effects

When I first order Flower Shop (AND the Pansy punch, of course – this kind of thing goes without saying) I discovered that Stampin’ Up! had pulled a bit of a fast one on us. The flower – and the punched image – are NOT symmetrical. You can’t just stamp that flower and punch it out any ol’ which-a-way. I developed a solution and posted a mini-tutorial: you can check it out HERE.

Take a look and see what Cheryl and Crystal have done with their calendars this month. We all hope you enjoy our mini-tour!

Today is also DAY 1 of Stamp, Stock and Save. Card stock, ink, adhesive and envelopes are discounted 15%, and a select group of stamps has 20% savings. This deal lasts only until October 6, so don’t miss it! Get all the details HERE.

I have wonderful neighbors. One of them loves to bake, and she is very generous with her goodies. She knows I love – and therefore have to control – my sweets, so she regularly drops by a little parcel with just a few goodies for Mr. Maui Stamper and me. A couple of weeks ago I decided to make her a little thank you gift:

There might be a couple more stamps in the background – I lost track. I cut the tags and then started layering images until I was happy. Looking at them now, I think I could add more! When I gave them to my neighbor, I cut twine to size for her to use to tie the tags to her packages.

You can’t go wrong with the Fabulous Phrases stamp set. There are so many choices that I had a hard time narrowing it down, although the width of my tag was a factor.

I wish I would have thought to take a picture of the package of them all together. I used one of our Chevron printed Tag a Bag gift bags with some ribbon and a tag of its own.

Gotta have a Happy Birthday tag to round out the set! It made a small gift with a heartfelt message of appreciation.

Did you appreciate a My Paper Pumpkin kit and wish you had the supplies to make additional projects? Stampin’ Up! announced three new refill items today, and there are also four past issues available for purchase as the full kits – click HERE for details. This offer is available only to CURRENT My Paper Pumpkin subscribers. Not subscriber? That’s easy enough to remedy – click HERE! Please select me – Anne Matasci, zip code 96753 – as your demonstrator. And thanks!

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Welcome to the RemARKable Pinworthy Blog tour for March! I’m glad you’ve joined us and I’m sure you’ll be inspired. Let’s dive right in:

Lately I’ve been hooked on the Card-in-a-Box concept. The possibilities are endless, and this particular process really suits my “More is More” mentality – it seems like you can add bits and pieces forever! The colors in the Eastern Elegance Designer Series paper really inspired me.

There are lots of ways to assemble this card, but here’s a tip: You need a BRAND NEW, full box of Glue Dots. I use a bamboo BBQ skewer to lift them off the roll and place them on my project. (I use those skewers for tons of things – rolling paper into curls, reaching elusive spots, dabbing Tombo, placing glue dots and jewels – the list is endless. And when it gets all sticky with Tombo the Wonder Adhesive I just pitch it.)

The card folds flat for mailing, too, although with all that extra card stock embellishment, you’re going to need a little extra postage. It’s worth it 🙂

I was on a roll with these colors, so I carried the theme over to a Tag-a-Bag Box. There’s no way this was going in an envelope, so I had more room to play.

The doily is cut in half and smooshed (yes, that is the authentic, technical, paper-crafting term for it). I used Sticky Strip to hold it in place under the belly band since it would be sliding back and forth as the box opened and closed. When something Absolutely, Positively has to stick, you need Sticky Strip.

A Textured Impressions Embossing Folder on the Spiral Flower Originals die helps to soften the card stock so it will roll more easily. The Lattice TIEF does an especially good job of this, although I still smoosh the card stock before I roll the flowers.

I also use those odd crafty tweezers that pinch when you let go (instead of having to be squeezed) when I roll up my roses. They make it easy to hold onto the center of the flower while you’re rolling.

These colors make a gorgeous Easter color scheme, and I was delighted to find plastic eggs in Coastal Cabana! Maybe you’ll choose a different DSP, but I hope you’ll have some fun playing with new ideas for Easter this year.

Time to move on and see what Audra has in store. Thanks for stopping by!

Have you gotten your hands on the gorgeous burlap ribbon in the Holiday catalog?

Flower Shop, Oh Hello and Chevron Background stamps

Very Vanilla and Baked Brown Sugar card stock

Primrose Petals, Daffodil Delight and Baked Brown Sugar FFIP

Bitty Circle and Pansy Punches

Big Shot and Ovals Collection Framelits

Burlap ribbon

Pearl Jewels

Mini Glue Dots

The Flower Shop stamp set has one Pansy shape in 6 different textures – this one is burlap! It’s a little thing, but it matters to me.

The little yellow centers in the flower are applied with Mini Glue Dots. They give more lift than Tombo, less lift than Stampin’ Dimensionals, and fit better behind the small circles than a dimensional would. Another little thing…

Did you see my un-tutorial on using the Pansy Punch? Check HERE to simplify your life 🙂

This is a very quick card and it is USPS friendly!! It would be easy to switch that sentiment out to suit your need. I often make cards like this without the sentiment inked in. Having them on hand gives me an instant custom card when the moment strikes.

I wanted to do another oval card for one of my swaps. It’s fun, it’s easy, it fits in a standard envelope, and you don’t see too much of it.

The technique is simple. You fold a 4 1/4 x 11 inch piece of cardstock in half at the 5 1/2 mark and place the folded side slightly inside of your oval framelit. This works best with our lighter weight cardstocks, Very Vanilla and Whisper White. The framelit will cut cleanly through two layers of these papers, giving you the card base. Once that’s ready, I like to cut another complete oval out of my featured color of cardstock and adhere that to the Very Vanilla card – I use Tombo, the Wonder Adhesive.

Flower Shop and Express Yourself (hostess) stamp sets

Very Vanilla, Pool Party, and Crumb Cake card stock

Epic Day This n That DSP

Bermuda Bay and Daffodil Delight FFIP

Daffodil Delight Seam Binding

Bermuda Bay 1/8 inch taffeta ribbon

Big Shot

Oval Framelits

Honeycomb TIEF

Lattice TIEF

Pansy Punch

Vanilla Smooch Spritz

Dazzling Details

Tombo, the Wonder Adhesive

Stampin’ Sponges

Stampin’ Dimensionals

On August 24th, I’m holding a class to make two of my swaps. We are definitely going to make the Very Vintage card, but I haven’t decided if I should include this card or the Too Kind swap I’ll be posting in a few days. I’d love to hear what you think!

Did you stamp some Flower Shop images and try to punch them out? Did you discover what I learned – the images aren’t symmetrical! Took me a while, but I have a system to make it easier.

Grab your stamps, your punch and a Sharpie and let’s get started! I HIGHLY recommend you follow this procedure for ONE image and your punch. Make sure you’ve got everything lined up, and THEN add the marks to the rest of the images. Saves a lot of “erasing”.

See those little black dots? We’re going to mark each image with a Sharpie. You’ll notice I’m storing my stamps inside the die cut negative rubber. I started doing that a while ago and find it keeps them from slipping unnoticed out of the case, especially when the stamps are small.

I began the process by putting dots on the stamps and the negative image just so I could line them up easily to put them back! Later on I realized the dots could help me line up the punch.

If you happen to put the dot in the wrong place, never fear – it wipes off quite easily with Staz-on ink cleaner and a cotton swab. You can put the dots wherever you like, but this whole process will be much easier and go much more quickly if you put them in the same place on the flower that I did. (The easiest flowers to work with for that purpose is the one on the top left in the first photo or the one with the different patterns for each petal – you can see it peeking on the left side of the photo directly above.)

If you’ve already taken your stamps out of the negative rubber and discarded it, you can still make your dots. Just be sure they are in the same place on each stamp. Here’s a little tool to help you:

Not very high tech, but it works! I keep this little “tool” in the box with my stamps for Senior Moments when I forget my system 🙂 Using the punched out image will allow you to quickly align all your Flower Shop images in the same position. Use it on the rubber side, not the sticker side. It will slip right over the rubber when it’s aligned correctly.

I went ahead and marked the dot on the “sticker side” of my stamps as well so that I could see it through the clear block. That allows me to be sure a row of pansies are stamped in the same orientation each time if I want to punch out a whole bunch (oh, say 60 or so!) Be careful here – when you flip the stamp over, be sure you don’t reverse it and put the dot on the opposite side! Check the rubbah!

Next step is to mark the punch. I’ve marked both the top and the bottom of the punch (go ahead, call me OCD or whatever other name you want. I’m used to it.) Again, use your paper template to line up the image, and keep in mind that top-side and bottom-side aren’t the same.

At this point you’ll want to check your work. Stamp a few flowers in a row, keeping the mark in the same position each time. My stamps are set up so that it’s easiest if I have the dot on the left side of the image as I stamp along the bottom edge of a strip of cardstock. There’s a little trial and error involved in how you orient the image, but it’s only a big deal if you’re punch a whole bunch of pansies.

One more little hint…I store my punches on their side in a pull-out drawer, so having the name of the punch on the side makes it much easier for me to choose the right one the first time! (Go ahead, say it – I’m a little label crazy.)

Hope this helps! As I read through it, it seems about as clear as mud. Once you get started, it falls into place. Enjoy your Flower Shop!